At some point along the road to I must have switched into survival mode. It’s like my Dad, when he goes back home to New York City, and you hear his accent get thicker and his temper get shorter as he prepares for City Mode. I put my Game Face on.

St. Louis is the first stop on the trip where I transfer buses. It didn’t matter that I got off in Kansas City, I knew I would be able to get back on, because I was sitting right back down on the same bus. At St Louis, they had the opportunity to screw with me again, and I wasn’t going to let them.

Since I wasn’t allowed onto the first bus on my itinerary, I had missed my connection to Chicago as well. Presumably I had no rights, the next connection could be any time they felt like and I would get to deal with it.

The driver looked at my ticket and directed me to the counter where I began to play Customer Service Roulette. This station was nicer, cleaner, and bigger, than the KC station, They shared it with Amtrack, who apparently have higher standards. St. Louis was using airport style consoles with computer printed boarding passes, All Junction City had given me was a piece of Carbon Paper.

I came in at Noon, they wanted to put me on a bus to Chicago at about 8pm with a connection to Madison in the morning. Also, the ticket I had been given in Junction did not cover round trip. After a bit of talking and schmoozing I managed to haggle them down to a 2pm Express Bus to Chicago, and a ride back on the day I wanted.

I was able to secure this ride back only by providing my online receipt from the Greyhound Website which I was able to procure on my SmartPhone, which had no cell reception, but could access the terminals WiFi.

I’m really starting to enjoy this now. What else you got? Huh? What’s the next challenge?

I’m on the bus to Chicago now. This one is actually nice, with the outlets and the WiFi they promised. It’s also only about half full which means I get two seats to myself that I can curl up and go to sleep in.